


Litterarum

by crystalrequiem



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Bethany Hawke/ Sebastian Vale hinted, Grief/Mourning, Idiots in Love, M/M, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Work In Progress, but not the way you'd think, healer Hawke, i'm not even sorry, knowing soulmates isn't always a kind thing, more angst than you can shake a stick at, taking a trope and transposing it to the DA fandom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-03-30 07:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3928345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalrequiem/pseuds/crystalrequiem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s had his Name for as long as he can remember. He knows he wasn’t born with it, but he doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. Those letters are his, and they are perfect. He can feel them in his bones and in his mind. They're his, and somewhere someday he's going to glimpse the face that goes with them. Some day he'll see G-a-r-r-e-t-t written neat-as-you-please on someone else's skin and he'll know.</p><p>Except it's not quite that simple, not hardly. </p><p>He should have known better than to believe in fairy-tales</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Best Kind of Lie

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I'm aware that this is a terrible idea during exams.
> 
> It seems like that's the only time I'm really inspired to write. 
> 
> I'd also like to just go ahead here and say that... I'm really terribly awfully sorry about what's about to happen to you readers. Like. There's a heading on the word document that I wrote this in. It says "What the fuck is wrong with you" and I feel like that's just sort of the best way to set the tone for this.
> 
>  
> 
> so uh...
> 
> enjoy?

 

                He’s had his Name for as long as he can remember. He knows he wasn’t born with it, but he doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter. He must have been very young when the name appeared. It was before the twins, he knows that.

                When he learned to read, he remembered being very excited about it. He’d pointed to the letters at his wrist, and demanded to learn them first. He hadn’t yet learned to recognize why they were slightly off or why people tended to wince ever so slightly when they saw. But the years pass. His handwriting gets better, his lines get straighter, letters more even and he slowly realizes that his Name has terrible penmanship.

                There are only four letters on his wrist, and they have always given him comfort, but they are small, crammed, and hesitant. The black lines that form them are thin and jagged, shaken. Hawke sees them and thinks the person who will someday write them must be shy—must be kind and lonely. But he also learns what other people think. He begins to understand that somehow people use this writing to decide his Name must be broken, must be stupid or wrong in the head.

                He starts pulling his sleeves down over his fingertips when he goes to market. He’s not ashamed, but he’s not going to let them think less of his Name.

                Mother notices, and winces like he’s seen so many others do.

                “My Name’s not stupid,” he tells her, defiantly, because he _knows_. His Name’s not stupid. He’s just got the worst handwriting. And when Garrett finally meets him, his going to sit down with him and help him get better, because practice is the only reason Garrett’s letters look any better anyhow.

                “Of course not, darling,” Mother placates. She’s not lying, but her words seem empty all the same, and he just can’t figure out _why_.

                It’s many, many years later when he realizes the second half—that his Name sounds distinctly Tevinter, and that there were plenty of people in Tevinter who never learned to write, because….

                Garrett resolutely did not allow himself to understand that part.

                _Bad Handwriting_ , he told himself, over and over again until he could almost believe it.

 

* * *

  
  
_Sebastian_ is the name written on the inside of his baby sister’s wrist from the moment she’s born, in an impudent, swooping scrawl that borders on calligraphy. Garrett thinks distantly that it’s not a very considerate signature. On baby Bethany, it takes up almost all the space of her arm. 

(              “She’ll grow into it,” his mother tells him later, but he still thinks it’s a little rude. He makes a point as he learns his letters to write his name practically and sensibly small.)

                “Such hand-writing!” His mother coos to the toddling Bethany. “I wonder what he’s like, darling? Must be a scribe, a scholar, only someone learned ever writes like that.” Garrett watches them, trying to balance a fussy Carver on his hip. He’s too young to know what he’s doing, but Mother only has so many arms, only so much strength left in her and two new mouths to feed. With Father out working so hard every day, he has to step up. So he does. “A librarian! A priest,” his mother continues, playing with the swirl of dark hair on his baby sister’s head. “Who knows? Maybe a lordling. Maybe even a prince!” She laughs and Garrett does not know what is so funny. His family is already firmly established as the only royalty he’ll ever follow. He is only five, but they are the kings and queens of his life.

(              Years later, he sees the words “Prince Sebastian Vale” on the chanter’s board and his breath catches in his chest. He takes the note, and he kills the men but not for the coin—it’s for the unanswered question, for the chance… The Prince meets him personally and Hawke barely manages not to tremble with grief when he catches a glimpse of the greyed-out name lingering like a ghost against the man’s skin. He can’t focus well enough to read it, but he knows.

                He doesn’t have enough air to speak. Years later and he still hasn’t found the breath to say it…

                Or maybe he just can’t bear to be that cruel.)

 

* * *

 

 

                Carver tumbles excitedly into the kitchen one day in spring. He’s barely on his way to being two, but he can say a few words and he’s almost got the walking bit down pat. Garrett stops his brother from crashing headlong into the pots and pans with a steadying hand.

                “Whoa!” he cautions, laughing as his mother looks on, “What’s got you so excited?” he teases, six and three quarters years old and quite precocious. He barely dodges Carver’s up-thrust fist in time to avoid getting hit in the nose. “Hey—“

                “Me too!” Carver’s a bundle of energy under his hand, he can barely stand still but his hand waves in the air. “Me too mtoo!” he slurs, his other chubby hand tugging meaningfully at the mark on Garrett’s wrist. Garrett realizes what he means with a dawning elation. Excited, he takes his brother’s tiny hand, and feels his heart drop, just a little. “Me too!” Carver is still chanting, his little face so determined and happy. Garrett does not know how to explain that this is… this is different.

                “Mom,” he calls, unsure, but she has already seen his face and is already drying her hands on her skirts to rush toward them. “I don’t know these letters.” Carver quiets, sensing something wrong with their concern. Leandra says nothing for too long and Garrett begins to worry. “It’s got to be really far away, right? Like… Orlay, or something!” He says the furthest thing he knows of. And at 6, the world as he knows it is quite small.

                “It’s not Orlesian.” His mother corrects him, but she doesn’t say anything more than that. “Go play with your sister dear,” she says to Carver, her voice all too tired.

                He haunts the hallways outside the twins’ room at night when his parents are too involved in their frantic whispers to notice him and hears his Father grumble “Elvhen”.  He understands that it is different, but he does not understand why it is a problem, or why his mother bites her lip and bows her head.

                “I did not want things to be difficult for them,” she mumbles, and his father’s hand rests consolingly on her shoulder. “But poor Carver, to fall in love with an _elf_ —I… and Garrett’s name is—” His hand flies protectively to the gentle letters across his skin, and he backs away before he can hear more. He does not want to hear it. He does not want to know. His Name is _his_ , his Name is perfect and there is no reason for his mother to look so sad. There isn’t.

                He resolves not to be sad for Carver. Surely loving someone you were _made_ for can never be hard.

(              Years later he watches his friends slowly fall apart and sink into depression and destroy themselves over the letters scrawled into their wrists and their hearts and he knows that he was deeply, _deeply_ wrong. )

 

* * *

 

                He is fourteen and he has come to understand why his mother looked so worried about Carver’s pretty writing. It looks almost-more like a tattoo than a name, letters flowing together. It is actually quite beautiful, but it has made Carver bitter.

                “Oh!” says the old city elf at the fruit stall when Carver strips off his leather-cuffs. His younger brother looks away, blushing, eyes filled with something like hurt but not quite. Garrett wonders how an expression like that can fit on a nine-year-old’s face. It doesn’t sit right.

                “Can ya’ read it?” He grumps, uncomfortable with his Name bared to the air. He’s high-strung and ready to run, like he’s afraid someone will come and take the letters from him. Garrett fidgets with his long sleeves and supposes he has no room to comment.

                “No, I’m sorry,” She tells them, pity in her voice and on her face. The tips of Carver’s ears go red with embarrassment, but he continues the motions, slips the laces of his cuffs back together. He’s heard so many “no’s” in so many towns already, and Garrett wonders at how strong his little brother must be. They both have something of an exotic name on their wrists, but at least Garrett can read his. At least he can whisper his Name to the stars at night and pretend his dreams are real.  “But I can tell you who could. You need the Dalish, you do.” Carver perks up like Garrett’s not seen him do in a long time, eager and excited.

(              “Me too!” the toddler had shouted, so sure and happy. Garrett didn’t realize then that things like enthusiasm and joy could be poisoned)

                “Where can we find them?” He nearly falls over himself to ask. The woman looks both ways before she whispers in his ear. She is so quiet that even Garrett cannot hear her, but Carver looks at her like she has put the sun in the sky. “Thank you!” he cries out as he snags Garrett’s arm, and starts racing back toward home.

                “What’d she say?” The elder brother asks, breathless as they tear through the streets, back down the alleys that will bear them out to the country.

                “I promised not to tell!” Carver shot back, grinning stupidly. Garrett wasn’t used to seeing his brother so happy. Already there was a sickly cynical part of him that said this wasn’t good—that said something had to go wrong. “The Dalish don’t like _shem_ , so it’s secret, see? Only _I’m_ special!” He crowed, waving his still-covered Name, so proud of himself.

                It clicked, much later, why Carver was so determined to keep the clan’s secrets. Why he said nothing, even through his tears as they packed up their things and hastily ran from the Templars a few days after the fruit-seller had given them hope. Bethany and Garrett were magic, were already special. Carver was normal, save for his Name. Carver felt like he didn’t belong, but if some other clan already accepted him, if his Name helped him belong somewhere…

                “Why didn’t you say anything?” Bethany was already crying in sympathy when Carver told them, tonelessly, already a hundred miles away from their last home: the Dalish were set to arrive in the woods there tomorrow. Their parents were suspiciously silent at the front of the wagon.

                “I couldn’t have gone anyway,” he said, gravely. “Valina said the Templars hunt the Dalish. If the Templars were following us, I…” Garrett could see it. He could see the bitterness making its return. The-pent up coil at the base of his baby brother’s shoulders. Had his back always seemed so broad? “If she was part of that clan, and the Templars got her because of…” _you_ “me, I would never forgive myself.”

                “I’m sorry,” he hears, and takes a moment to realize the words have been uttered by Bethany and not himself. He does not know why he feels so guilty for what he is, for what he cannot control.

                “Sorry doesn’t change anything,” Carver says grudgingly, and turns darkly away. “I’ll find her someday, when there’s no bloody Templar tracking us down.”  The wagon is silent. No one even complains about his language.

(              Take the amulet to a Dalish clan on the outskirts of Kirkwall, the Dragon demanded. Carver jumped at the word, and looked at her warily, eyes narrowed. He didn’t stop Garrett from taking the offer. He knew this would be their only way out, but there was always something broken in him when it came to the Dalish. He’d all but abandoned the hope of ever meeting a clan.

                “What if she’s there?” Garrett asks him a few months later, desperate for something to talk about. The spaces where Bethany should be still feel hollow, and he misses her like he might miss a limb, but he imagines for Carver it must be worse.

                “Of course she won’t be,” Carver growls, spitting over the rail. He looks every bit the rough, army deserter he really is. “Since when do you believe in fairy-tales?” but there is no hiding the way he grips the ship’s railing to diminish the shaking of his hands.

                He keeps his arms covered when they do finally make their way to the summit. He does not tell the elves there that he is _special_. He lets Garrett and the amulet be special for him, and he is bitter.)

 

* * *

 

                When he is sixteen, he loses his mind.

                It’s so unexpected, so out of nowhere, and he—

                He’d been just finishing up the dishes. They’d eaten a little later than usual that night. Mother and Father are just on the other side of a low, half-wall with the twins. He knows how they are seated, mother rocking in an old chair, knitting or sewing. Father with a child on each side, reading them to sleep. They’re getting to be a little old for it, but they are also bored, and Father reads the best stories.

                Garret finishes the last wipe of the last dish and begins to wonder whether he should make tea when it begins. _Pain_ , the likes of which he’s never felt before, explodes through his wrist. He clutches at it blindly with his other hand, wondering what has happened and why it _hurts_ , and has he cut himself on the knife again? Maker, he hopes he hasn’t sliced the skin of his Name because….

                _His Name_! He realizes the source of his agony, feels the shape of those letters burning him. They’re smarting and twisting and cracking the skin of his arm. It feels like his skin and the bone beneath are burning, are splitting apart. It’s a timeless sort of agony that has the effect of throwing all thoughts from his head and yet, and yet… not _all_. Because he knows deep down that this is ruining something, this is hurting the person he wants to love someday, whom he’s never gotten the chance to love.

                He loses control of his legs at some point and falls to his knees in front of the water-basin. He wants it to stop, he wants it to end, but he’s terrified at the thought of what might happen if it does. He feels like he’s reeling into an abyss, like he’s being taken apart, piece by piece, hollowed out. Everything he is, is bleeding out of him through those four, tiny, misshapen letters on his wrist.

                “Leto,” He whimpers when he wants to scream. He’s choking on his sobs, but it hurts so bad his body can’t remember how to draw air properly. “No, Leto!” he manages to shout, stuttering. The noise is enough to draw his family from the other room, but Garrett does not notice them. He cannot notice them. He cannot feel his father’s hand against his shoulder. He does not know how his mother tries to coax him out of his position, curled like an injured animal around his wrist. He cannot know anything. The fire in his bones has spread from his wrist to blaze through his whole body. It hurts, _Maker_ it hurts. It hurts so badly that at some point he begins to wish for death.

                He spirals into nothing. He shatters over and over and he cannot get enough air to scream. He does not know why unconsciousness has been denied him, he does not understand how a physical being can hold this much hurt, but eventually, eventually, after what feels like hours, it begins to fade. Consciousness bleeds back. Pain recedes lowly, like the waves of a tide, and as he tries to remember who he is, he is struck with a spike of frantic worry. The pain is fading. The pain is _fading_ , but what does that mean? Because, if….

                If…

                His muscles do not want to listen to him, but he forces his arm up. He is shaking too much—he cannot hold it still enough to see. There’s a mantra of _No, please no,_ echoing through his thoughts and he almost doesn’t want to know, but he’s got to—he’s got to—

                “Garrett, baby,” he hears his mother’s voice before he remembers who she is, or that there are more than two people in his existence. “Garrett please rest,” she tries to soothe, but he is not put off his task. He brushes her hands away and does not understand the noise of wounded sympathy she stifles for him. Not yet.   

                 “Leto,” he croaks, and his voice feels raw. He wonders if he really had been burning inside. And really, that tiny, crammed handwriting has always been a little hard to read, but he should be able to focus on it from here. He should be able to see the thin, spider-like scratching of black against his skin. Realization dawns on him slowly, and it is sick. It is wrong. It is a single discordant note stretching out into eternity.

                “I’m so sorry baby,” His Mother sounds as if she is crying, and he knows that this is sympathy but it sounds like a death sentence and he is so, so confused.

                “No,” No. No, it’s not right. No, Leto can’t be dead. He’s got nothing more than a dream of this person he hasn’t met yet. His Name wouldn’t be so callow as to die. He wouldn’t. “No,” he says it twice, with all sureness, and the name begins to burn again. His eyes roll back into his skull, arm flopping back down to the mattress. This time, Garrett welcomes the agony as it takes him back under. Because it meant something, right? It meant this wasn’t over. It meant he had at least a few more seconds. It meant, it meant…

                He didn’t come back to himself till far into the morning this time. Maybe he’d actually been able to pass out. Maybe... he didn’t know. But he found himself staring at his upturned wrist and wondering what exactly it meant.

                “Garrett,” It’s his father that addresses him now. The furrows of Malcom’s brow are deep and his eyes are nothing but sympathy.

                “Well…It’s not grey,” Garrett says, and speaks the truth. His Name has not greyed out, not like all the widowers and broken hearted he’d seen in town, wearing their dead Names bare to air their grief. It is not grey.

                _It is bright, silver-white. Almost like…_

                “Garrett,” his father tries again, and he holds his green eyes shut and tries to hold tightly to his denial. “Sometimes, when people die in particularly traumatic ways—”

                “It is not grey!” he cries out again, in pain, fearful of the words his father might wound him with. “It’s not, so he can’t be—” he insists, twisting the delicate skin of his own wrist until it must be even more not-grey. He could add purple and red and blue too and he’d never have to think. He could keep hoping and never let his thoughts stray too closely to the old woman he’d once seen in Denerim with her name cracked open and glowing like a red-hot coal.

                _They burned her at the stake, and they did not know how they burnt me too. One day_ —

                He does not want to think what it could have been to turn his name glistening white. He does not want to think what they must have done to his Name that could _hurt_ like that. He does not want to think that the love of his life had been tortured to death for what felt like _so long,_ and Garrett had not been able to save him—had never even met him.

                “Garrett.” Malcom’s close to tears himself, but when he calls his son’s name a third time, all the fairy-tale walls come crashing down. Garrett collapses into himself and _weeps_.

                He is sixteen when he loses his mind, and his heart both. His family tries so hard to help him find all the pieces and put them back together, but he doesn’t quite feel right after. Everything feels wrong. Every day aches, feels like it’s a chore, and he quickly realizes that it’s never going to get better. Sometimes, in the night, when he’s not paying attention, when he accidentally brushes silver lines in his skin, he hears the echoes of an old woman’s words.

_They burned her at the stake, and they did not know how they burnt me too._

_One day at the end, I will be there to watch them burn instead._

                He wonders what the end is, and whether he can hasten it, but he knows he would like very much to watch them burn instead. He does research when he can, and asks questions where he shouldn’t and thinks maybe with enough magic he could figure out a way to make them suffer exactly as long as his Name had suffered.

                He takes up healing for all the wrong reasons, but Malcom is a teacher by nature and he’s so pleased to have his son learning his trade that he doesn’t think to ask why. Garrett figures he doesn’t need to know.

 

(              He sees a stranger walk around the corner of the stair and his breath catches in his chest. Before him stands a man covered in lines of singing lyrium, all silver-white light, pulsing , and it’s almost like….

                He does not dare to hope, but he cannot help the bubble of that poisonous emotion rising in his chest.

                “Who are you?” He questions, his heart twisting painfully.

                The stranger pays him little mind, doesn’t answer until after he’s finished checking the body of the man he’s just killed.

                “My apologies. I am Fenris,” he says, and there is no lie in his voice. The bubble bursts, and he wonders how it can keep hurting like this. “and you are?” the stranger-Fenris-asks, just as curious.

                “Hawke,” he says, voice rough with words unsaid. “It’s Hawke.” He feels, distantly, his brother’s hand on his shoulder and he wonders whether he’s that visibly ruined, or if Carver just knows him too well. )

               

* * *

 

                “People who keep their names covered generally have something _wrong_ with them,” someone teases him in town once, and Garrett says nothing.

                He does, however, grow acutely aware of the cut of Bethany’s sleeves, and the way that hope has not bled from her features. Mother and Father wear robes with loose cuffs, but they seem like something of an anomaly. He begins to wonder if he has watched a fairy-tale all his life and never known it.

(              Eventually he meets Merrill, covered in green and leather, armored Aveline, Varric in gloves just slightly too long, Fenris with his gauntlets buckled tight, Anders with sleeves that stay clinging and thick even in summer. He does more than wonder.

                Those of his friends who do not hide are almost worse. Isabela has a garish scar on the inside of her arm that renders the ink there illegible, but she wears it proudly. The worst of all is Sebastian, who does not bother to cover the phantom of a dead girl’s name.

                This is the truth, this is what reality looks like, Garrett reminds himself, and watches them drink into the night. His parents had always been a beautiful lie.)


	2. Interlude: The boy who no longer exists

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops there it goes.  
> Fun times at mansion Danarius.  
> ~ have fun

 

                There is a boy. He is a bit small for his age, but then, so are all the other boys here. He is reasonably intelligent, quick, and quiet, but then, so are most who manage to live in this place. In most respects, he is exactly like the rest. He is neither exceptionally beautiful, nor ugly. He is not exceptionally strong or weak. He is simply another knife-ear child amidst the sea of slaves.

                But…he is also different. He is _very_ different, because somehow and some way he is unbrokenly stubborn. Somehow, he still has hope.

                He stares at the splash of black on the inside of his wrist as he daydreams, eyes tracing even, rounded leaders without comprehension. He doesn’t know what it says, but he still feels a bubble of pride in his chest every time he looks. Whoever his Name is must be a composed, efficient person. He doesn’t know how to read, but he knows well enough that there’s care in the writing. He dares to hope in the darkest breaths of the night that care is for _him_.

                He does not think about how impossible it will be to find his nameless someone when he can’t read. He does not realize yet how that might be a problem.

* * *

 

                It’s not till much later that he learns from others of his station the hard truths of being illiterate.

                “It’s not just that we can’t read each other’s names,” the scullery maid tells him as she scrubs the kitchen counter. She’s half-drunk off the cooking sherry, but the cook wasn’t looking and he’s promised not to tell. “It’s that, if our mate’s another slave, see… well he won’t never know how to write, will he? So he ain’t got a signature.”

                He knows he shouldn’t. He knows it’s rude, but sneaks a look at her wrist when she grabs for the flour next. Sure enough, her Name is just a black, wavering _X_. “Not you though,” she continues, pouring a bit too much flour into the bowl and making her batter a touch more dry than it should be. He pauses his own work and slides the butter across the counter. Hopefully she’ll put in just a bit too much of that as well to keep the ratio even. “You’ve got somebody’s whole name on your arm, lucky shit.”

                “Iona, you’re not kept on to be gadding about!” cook finally steps back in from the dining room just to scold them, and the conversation stops. They work in silence until cook’s shadow flees the room

                He just folds the napkins as he’s been instructed to do and watches Iona slice into the butter with a bit more vigor than is strictly necessary. He folds and he wonders… What if… Is his Name out there, staring at a misshapen _X_ and wondering what he’s done wrong to end up with a slave for a mate? Does his Name even know what it means? He really hopes not. The thought of his Name resenting him… It scares him.

                He’s just got to learn to write his name, right? He’s just got to learn to sign his name, and then somewhere out there the person meant just for him will have letters too.

* * *

 

                Every morning he walks amidst the other children down a tiny, narrow stair to the kitchens, checks his appearance very quickly in his reflection on cook’s shiniest pots, and makes his way through the side-yard to the Overseer’s office. He’s never known anything else, but he’s heard from a few of the others that it’s different in other houses. House Danarius has a veritable _fleet_ of slaves to wait it, and it seems to prize efficiency. It’s the overseer’s job to make sure everyone is busy with tasks to do, and to mete out any minor punishments. Major punishments… well, that’s the Master’s purview.

                He’s going through the motions another morning when his mother stops him quietly.

                “Leto,” she says softly—she only ever says anything softly, “please wear this.” It’s a swath of blue cloth, a little dingy, but he knows the color. She’s cut it from her favorite dress.

                “Why?” He asks, but he reaches out to take it nonetheless. She shakes her head and holds his hand still as she kneels down. Gently, she wraps the scrap around and over his Name. “Hey—wait—I don’t want to cover—”

                “Darling,” Her voice is always so quiet, but he can’t help but listen when she sounds like she’s going to cry. He thinks he can see tears in her eyes. “The others _talk_ about it dear. I’m afraid for you. I don’t want to remind them.”

                “But I _need_ people to see it! What if I run into my name and—”The look on her face is heartbroken. He cuts himself off. He doesn’t want to see her cry today.

                “Please,” she’s begging. He listens. He doesn’t get it, and he thinks this is stupid, but he will not fight his mother. She does not have any fight left to give him. He does not realize yet, all the ways she is sad and broken, but there is some innate sympathy that aches to heal her nonetheless.

                He nods after just a beat too long, and realizes that all the other bunks are slowly emptying. Mother is still holding his wrist, still looking like she wants to cry.

                “Mom, I can’t be late again,” He says quietly, just a touch nervously. Leto may be yet unbroken, but he still fears the Overseer’s switch.

                “Go. I’ll wake your sister.” He runs and escapes punishment another morning. His mother does not.

* * *

 

                He humors his mother. He thinks privately that she’s just paranoid, but he can’t stand to see her upset. Once, he tries to simply take the scrap off when she’s not looking, but he can’t tie it back quite right and she _knows_ when he gets back to their bunk at night. Besides, the looks that people like cook and Iona gave him that day were… unnerving.

                He thinks she’s just paranoid, but eventually he comes to see the stares that brush jealously over his bound wrist and he wonders… maybe she’s not? And then one day Danarius removes from him all doubt.

                He’d been given the task of tilling a new row on the herb garden and ferreting out the weeds. He’s half-terrified he won’t know weed from plant, but lucky there’s an older slave who knows the difference. It’s hot work, and his back and shoulders ache from spending so long bent forward, busting dry earth or searching for hiding weeds. But there was something… good about it. Something to like about digging in the dirt he couldn’t quite place. He’s almost distracted by the work itself when he hears the Overseer’s bell ring.

                “Oh,” the older slave with him looks off toward the sound with wide eyes. “We’d better head over then.”  Leto realizes only slowly what he means. Right. The Overseer’s bell means they should all come to the courtyard. He’s only heard it a handful of times, but none of them have ever been good.

                This one isn’t either.

                “Loyal servants of this house, I am loathe to interrupt your tasks, but your friend Corin here has done something which simply must be shared,” Danarius has one of the human slaves by the wrist and is dragging him viciously to face the whole group. Leto thinks he might recognize the man as one of Danarius’s personal attendants, older than him but younger than his mother.

                “Please, I—” The man tries to speak. Danarius’s placid mask turns momentarily vicious, and he wrenches Corin’s arm up and back at an angle that looks quite painful.

                “ _Corin_ was serving my guests lunch after the assembly today and he, ever so subtly, flashed them the inside of his wrist while he was pouring water, didn’t he?” Danarius pulls he arm up further until the poor slave is almost lifted by it. He cries out pathetically.

                “I don’t know! I didn’t know they saw it! I—”

                “Your little _Name_ happens to be one shared by the leader of the senate. Do you know how you’ve embarrassed him? Embarrassed _me?_ ” Danarius yanks and the joint pops. Corin screams and Leto tries very, very hard not to look away. He’s been taught not to look away. Looking away is a disservice to the slaves. Looking away is considered an admission of guilt by the Master. He must not look away.

                “I’m sorry!” The servant sobs, Danarius lets go of his limp arm, but he does not dare to run. He only whimpers and nearly falls face-flat.

                “Damned right, you’re sorry,” the Master barks, before his face switches into a mask of gentleness. “Poor Corin, it’s not your fault that fate gave you a name so far above your station. You could be pittied, really. He’s supposed to be _ordained_ for you, but there’s no way a free man would ever want a slave. And a man like _that_?” Danarius tuts. “If word got out, you might ruin his career. He can’t afford to care about you.”

                Leto begins to feel something twisting like lead in his stomach. _There’s no way a free man would ever want a slave_ , he hears, and his world grows a little bleaker. It’s not right. It _can’t_ be true! His Name’s got to want him back, right?

                “On the other hand,” as Danarius continues, his face contorts again. He can flip from sympathy to fury at a moment’s notice and it’s unsettling, frightening. He knows it. “ _I_  have cared for you in his stead. _I_ have given you a life here. _I_ have given you affection, and yet! You still hoped so much to find your hypothetical phantom of a lover that you _flash your wrist at my dinner parties!_ ” He does not dare to think that Master seems a little irrational. He is trying too hard to focus. He is trying very, very hard not to draw attention to his trembling, snugly wrapped forearm.

                Corin is a sobbing mess on the ground. He cannot respond. Everyone tenses. They see Danarius move, watch the haze and warp of magic around his hands until he holds a flaming whip. He does not need to hold a physical weapon to punish them, and he likes them to remember.

                “I should kill you and do him a favor!” Danarius snarls, bringing stinging flame down against his slave’s back. The fabric lights, and Corin’s sobbing turns to screams.

                It is very, very difficult not to look away.

                That night, he curls up and cries into his mother’s skirt in a way he has not since he was very little. She holds him tight and does not say a word.

                He does not remove the rag from his wrist.

* * *

 

                He’s getting older. He thinks if he counts right he’s past eleven summers, but he’s not sure really. All he knows is, he’s been trying and dreaming a long time, and he still doesn’t know how to write his own name. Now, the matter is worse, because if he’s to keep his Name covered at all times, then it’s got to be _him_ on the lookout if he’s ever going to find his fated person!

                He’s got to find a way, but he doesn’t know how. He believes he’ll find a way. But the older he gets, the more he begins to feel the weight of impossibility. There’s a growing, niggling ache inside that whispers doubt in his heart. He is a slave and that is all he can possibly be. He has a name above himself, and it can only ever hurt him—

                He tries to keep those thoughts away with promises of the future, but they are growing harder and harder to contrive.

                “Head to the library today,” the Overseer tells him, and Leto nods. He is told to report to the librarian and to be quick about it. He does.

                As ever, the Library is a disappointment. He thought, when he was much younger, that he would be able to learn letters here. This being the place with the most letters, it seemed the most likely area to pick them up. But, without a teacher, they remained nonsense, and he didn’t _dare_ ask the Master’s librarian to teach him to _read_. Even at eleven, he knew well enough what would get him lashings or worse.

                “Search for books that are not on the shelves, and bring them back to me,” The old man commands first. Leto does as he’s asked. He combs every inch of the library floors, window sills and tables. He trots up and down the library hall with armfuls of books, and sets them gently in stacks on the Librarian’s desk. The man takes them, puts them in some sort of order, and replaces them on strange, wheeled carts. Presumably, he pushes them around and places the books back where they’re supposed to fit on the shelves. Leto doesn’t have time to stay and watch. He is too busy looking for more.

                Eventually, he reaches the very back of the room. There are only a couple books scattered on the floor here, but they are very dusty and likely have not been retrieved in years. He lifts them and tries not to sneeze as the dust puffs resettle. He gives the area a once over and realizes there’s a book he hadn’t noticed before, there, on a dias at the very back. It’s… It’s on a dias, which looks like its proper place? But the librarian asked him to take everything not on the shelves and he knows he’ll get punished if he doesn’t obey.

                Besides, he can just act like it was on the floor like the rest. If it’s supposed to be on the dias, the librarian will put it back, right? He shoulders two dust-powdered, heavy tombs with one thin arm and reaches out to grab the third.

                “I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.” The voice surprises him so much that he nearly drops his armful of books.

                “Who said that, who’s there?” He hisses, praying that the librarian doesn’t hear. He doesn’t know if this is a trick, or if he’s just going mad like old man Tello. It wouldn’t be the first time a slave in this house lost his mind, he knows.

                “Just me,” something echoes again, and his frantic searching somehow draws to the tiny, sculpted gargoyle above the dias. “Yes, me. Hello strange one.” It laughs at him, and though its mouth doesn’t move he knows somehow that’s where the voice is.

                “What—what are you?” he stumbles to ask. Mother promised him long ago that the Gargoyles couldn’t talk, and he’s too old to believe in such things anyway. Demons and shades, however, he knows to exist. One doesn’t live in service to a magister long without learning of demons.

                “How wonderful! So many questions! So much you want to learn!” he bristles as it talks down to him, but he gets the strangest impression that it doesn’t mean to. It actually seems legitimately pleased. “But it’s boring just to whisper all the answers in your ear. Child, we are in a library. Can I point you to a book?”

                He glares at it, grip tightening on the volumes in his arms. He knew how to act as a good slave should, but that didn’t make his pride an easy thing to swallow. He did not need to stay here and be mocked by a stone. He turns to leave.

                “Ah! I see! You can’t read!” It chimes without him saying a word, and he swivels on a heel. “Well, I can help with that.”

                He knows he should not be so tempted. He knows it is likely a trick. But he also knows that he is not likely to learn on his own…. It is _very_ tempting.

                “What would you take, in return?” He fields cautiously, heart beating like a hummingbird in his chest. He knows better. He _knows better_ , but he just…

                “Nothing much, just a promise to keep me a secret. I like living here, but I don’t want to deal with your Master and his ilk. They’ll try to use me to find out one thing or another and that’s _so_ passé, don’t you think?” It’s a good deal. It screams of suspicion but if that’s all it wants….

                “Okay,” he breathes, barely a whisper, and the thing laughs. He _feels_ something jump from the gargoyle to him, just a piece, and he begins to fear.

                “Oh calm down,” the voice sounds like it’s coming from the gargoyle and just behind his ear all at once. “I’ve got to see to show you the letters, haven’t I? How am I going to do that from the back of the library?”

                “Aren’t you done in the back yet, boy?” the librarian’s voice resounds, and Leto nearly jumps out of his own skin.

                _Worry not, he can’t hear me here,_ the thing whispers in his ear, and he fights not to shiver. _Go about your business and I will show you as you work_.

                He gets a swat from the librarian for slacking, but it’s not a particularly hard one. He’s heard the librarian is rumored to be a little kinder to children. _Oh, he’s not so bad, but he’s boring_ , the commentary overruns his own thoughts and nearly has him squeaking as he’s given his next orders. He manages, somehow.

                “Roll up the carpets and scrub the floor beneath, please,” the librarian demands. He points out a scrub brush and a bucket that have been brought to the room for this use. Leto rolls up his pant legs and gets to work. “And be careful not to get any water on the books!” He shouts as an afterthought. It’s just disturbing when the thing in his head _agrees_.

                _So_ , it muses, _what shall we start with. Little Leto… let us start with that!_ He pushes the bucket and drags it in turns, trying as hard as he can not to let the water slosh with his mind reeling all over the place.

                It’s quiet for a while as he works. He strains to roll the carpets at first until he realizes there’s a trick them. The voice leaves him alone as he scrubs, and he almost wonders if he’s been dreaming this whole thing but—

                _That book there, has the word “Atlus,” that one “Betrothed”, the one behind you “Action.”_ As it points out each word, it draws his eyes to them, lets him see the way they are formed so that they seem to blaze white behind his eyelids. _Can you tell which letter, which sound is the same among them?_

                It takes him a while longer than it probably should, but he’s afraid to give the thing the wrong answer. He keeps scrubbing, leaves the section to dry and starts moving to the next one.

                “Is it—“ he begins to whisper, and the answer draws itself in his mind before he can breathe its sound.

                _Yes!_ The voice crows, triumphant for him _. That is the letter “t”_. It is familiar. He _knows_ that one. There are two, repeated on his wrist. _Yes!_ It is pleased again.

                The afternoon passes all too quickly. _L_ is easy, but _E_  and _O_ have so many pronunciations and uses and he gets confused before long. The thing in his head doesn’t get frustrated or angry as long as he keeps trying, he learns. He tries. He tries and he thinks he might have them down. Before he knows it, he is rolling the carpets back out for the last time.

                “Good work.” The librarian complements as he puts the brush and bucket full of now-filthy water back where he found them. “Now could you—”

                They pause as they both hear ringing; the Overseer’s bell. Leto’s breath catches in his throat and he thinks irrationally that they have found out about him learning from the voice in the library.

                _Say nothing about me, and they will have no cause to hurt you._ It tells him, and he remembers how to breathe.

                “You’d best be off then,” the librarian sighs, and Leto nods, still feeling addled. He wipes his hands on the front of his shirt, tries to straighten up and rushes off.

                The feeling of whatever-it-is slipping out through his ear as he crosses the threshold of the library is jarring. He shivers and reminds himself that it’s worth it.

                _He knows how to sign his own name_.

(              At some point, when he does not remember Leto any more, he wonders whether he might learn the skill. He fields the question to his Master, when he thinks the man might be indulgent.

                “Ah, my poor wolf, you are not smart enough to read,” he consoles, as if he is doing a kindness. Fenris smiles and nods and buries the feeling that he must have known something of it once. He feels like he recognizes a letter or two, every once in a blue moon. There’s an echo of a voice in his head, _yes, that’s the letter “t”_ , but it’s all he can recall and he doesn’t know why.

                Maybe his master tried to teach him before and he really had been too stupid to learn it all.)


	3. Meant to be a Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seems such a harmless phrase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WISH ME LUCK THE SECOND HALF OF MY A-EXAM IS IN ABOUT FOUR HOURS WHAT AM I DOING.
> 
> Hope you enjoy though. Chapter slightly shorter, but the end feels right so I'm not messin' with it.

                “At least it was quick,” they tell what’s left of his family when Father doesn’t come home.

                “He didn’t feel much.” The man who prepared the body tries to console, used to the concerns of grieving loved ones. As a healer, he looks at the injury that had killed his father and knows that they are right. A blow to the neck like that, death would be almost instant. But he knows the words mean nothing for their mother.

                “I know what he felt,” she tells them, blandly, her fingers wrapped with a bruising grip around her wrist. _Malcom_ is a faded grey now, a worn out design. She doesn’t have the heart to cover it. He almost wishes she would. It’s jarring to see.

                As a son, he grieves with her.  He hates the look on her face, desolate. He hates seeing the empty body as they lay it to rest, the flowers so starkly vibrant and ridiculous against the plain fabric of Father’s best robe. Mother dissolves and her children do not quite know how to help her. Carver’s given leave to come back for the ceremony, but he doesn’t stay long. He is like the rest of them, and he does not know what to do. They are all broken by their Father’s leaving, but Leandra is the only one who shatters.

                As a healer, he understands. As a son, he worries and wishes and tries to find new ways to bleed away his sorrow and the tears of his mother both. But as a selfish, petty, twisted human being he hears “ _At least it was quick_ ,” and feels nothing but jealousy.

* * *

 

                After his Father is gone, he stops practicing. He tries not to use his magic at all, if he can help it. They’ve already spent so much of their lives moving around, and Mother’s happy here in Lothering.  As close to happy as she can be anyway. She has friends here, other shoulders to lean on. So he tries very, very hard to keep himself hidden. He does not to think about the hot-blooded dreams keeps locked away inside. He knows that one day, after Bethany’s found work or her _Sebastian_ or both, after Mother is more stable, he’s going to blaze a path straight into Tevinter. He’ll have plenty of time to practice then. But for now, for now, it’s best to lay low. He contents himself with studying his father’s old books—treatises on anatomy and the chemicals of life. He learns a thing or two about nightshade, and he’s distantly pleased.

                Then the darkspawn come knocking, and he realizes he’d made the wrong choice. He should have worked harder. He should have _practiced._ He’s no real good at blatantly destructive magic, but that’s what they need. He knows how to lock the joints of the enemy, how to rip the consciousness from their minds, but he can only focus on so many at once and they just keep coming.

                “Duck!” Bethany shouts, as she sends gouts of flame shooting over his head into the horde. The order is easy enough to comply with. He spins away from his former position, notices his Mother having some trouble. He just manages to snatch her away from a grasping, clawed hand and holds the offending creature still long enough for Carver to lop its head off.  It’s good enough. “Toss a lightning bolt every once in a while, won’t you?” His sister chides in irritation, and he grimaces. He’d been good with electricity as a child, but he’d let the skill languish when his focus had changed. He doesn’t know whether he can still do any damage with it.

                “I’ll try,” he ascents.

                Next skirmish, he grimaces and tries to do as she asks. He remembers the way it feels to throw lightning, hair rising off skin, air charged just before a strike. He remembers how much he used to enjoy this, but... other priorities had taken up so much more of his time. It doesn’t matter now. He takes a steadying breath and lets the power roll off and out of him, pulling lightning from the very air. It’s not so much a bolt as an arc, leaping from him through the hearts of about four genlocks. It’s good. It’s still powerful but…

                He falls to a knee, light-headed after only a few of them. Carver growls and shoulders him back to standing.

                “Don’t exhaust yourself idiot, I can’t carry you now.” The irony of the situation is not lost on him. Bethany’s egging him on, and Carver’s the one begging caution. Laughter threatens to escape, but he knows he can’t indulge. He’s just this side of hysterical and he’s got to keep it together. Garrett shakes his head and finds entropy again, finds the delicate systems of life around him and tries to hold them at bay. He’s been working on a way to drain the life from them, this way, he’s pretty sure he could do it. He just hasn’t quite got it figured out. He hasn’t had enough _time_ , enough practice, and damn it, how was he supposed to know they’d be facing the bloody blight?

                He’s already flagging, Bethany’s magic reserves won’t last forever, and Carver can only do so much on his own. They’re going to fall if they don’t figure something out, and they know it.  

                In retrospect, it was probably inevitable that something should go wrong. It’s the sound that clues him in. He’s not sure how he manages to hear it over the clash of battle and the snarling of the enemy, but it’s all too clear. The subtle creak of a bow pulled taught. He follows it, and sees the arrows trained on his brother’s throat just a second too late.

                Garrett is in motion as soon as he sees, but he’s not going to make it. He’s got to cast and he’s got to do something drastic because arrows can’t be put to sleep. He’s not sure if he can do this, he’s not sure if it’ll do anything but he has to _try_. His magic fights him. He’s already so low on energy and lightening’s not _his_ like it used to be but—

                He’s not sure what he triggers. All he knows is that he’s suddenly _flooded_ with enough energy to cast. A bright, twisting arc of white lightening shoots from his fingers and knocks three arrows off course with a deafening _crack_. It’s almost too much—it escapes him and he lets it. The three genlock archers don’t stand a chance when light meets flesh. Electricity has their muscles spasming, nervous system shutting down, and he’s not sure how he missed this before—how electricity has its own kind of entropy. He doesn’t have time to savor the thought. He’s distracted. Through it all, there’s something off, something wrong, something buzzing like a bad dream at the back of his mind, and he’s not sure _why_ but—

                Just a few instants, and it’s done. The enemy archers drop, smoking to the uneven ground. Maybe Carver hadn’t noticed them before, but everyone notices _now_. It’s impossible not to notice. There’s no time to talk and the battle hasn’t stopped, but Carver’s _“What the bloody hell was that_?” is easy enough to hear.

                He doesn’t remember the rest of the battle. He doesn’t remember whether he keeps his head and stays up and fighting or whether his brother and sister pull him like deadweight until the field is empty of threats. He doesn’t remember his mother’s cautious hand at his trembling shoulder, because there’s something else his mind is just too focused on.

                There’s a decent slice in his shoulder, and it smarts when he moves his arm just- _so_ , but he can’t remember when it got there. Maybe one of those arrows he knocked away managed to clip him, maybe… he doesn’t know. He hardly feels it. He’s too focused on the dull, strangely familiar pain coursing through his wrist. It aches like a memory, like a burning in under his skin. He doesn’t know _why_ but he has a sneaking suspicion—

                L-e-t-o glows silver-white even through the fabric of his sleeve, bright as daylight. So pretty, almost like— _lyrium_.

                Reality hits hard—it tears through him, cuts through the static. He gasps as if he’s been hit, presses his arm tight to his chest. Reality _hurts_ so much more than the ache in his wrist and the distant complaints of his shoulder.

                “What happened, are you hurt?” His mother’s voice drifts to him as if she’s under water.

                “One of them caught him in the arm before I could break through,” Carver’s trying to gently shoulder their worried mother out of the way. Bethany manages with a bit more grace.

                “Let me look at it, Mother, I’ve got to make sure there’s no darkspawn blood or—“ Leandra steps back with a fearful murmur and his sister tries to pull his wrist away from where it’s clenched, too tight against his chest. “Garrett,” She calls, worried. He doesn’t know what to do. How to tell them—

                “I know what killed him,” he mutters weakly, and they do not understand.

                “Garrett, we can’t deal with this now. Let Bethy see your damn arm,” Carver is not pleased with him, and he is not kind. It doesn’t matter much. He knows by now that this is Carver’s way of being worried. “I swear to Andraste , if you fried your already addled brain with whatever that was—”

                “I _know_ what _killed him_ ,” he says again. The words don’t make it easier, and they still don’t understand. He closes his eyes, swallows once or twice.

                “We don’t have _time_ , Brother,” Bethany soothes, her fingers insistently pulling at his sleeve. He knows she is right. He can’t afford to break down now. But later—later….

                He lets her extend the arm, feels the tiny frisson of shock thread her frame when she catches sight of his Name still glowing like a white-hot coal beneath his sleeve.

                “Oh, Garrett.” She doesn’t know what it means, not really, but she knows well enough how painful _anything_ related to his Name must be. She can understand that kind of twisted-up-inside at the very least. Carver spots it next. The ex-soldier looses another string of curses, but this time they’re not all aimed at him.

                “What is—” Mother starts to ask, and thinks better of it.

                “Looks clean,” Bethany announces, and they all wait for him in quiet, staring. He’s supposed to heal himself now, he knows. It would be easy enough. But there’s _lyrium_ coursing headily through his system, fading only slowly and he didn’t know he could hate the feeling so much. He doesn’t want to use it. It feels utterly _wrong_ to use it, and he doesn’t think he’s got the heart to explain—

                Bethany pauses for only a second more before she’s moving on, ripping up a bit of unsullied skirt to tie a bandage. It’s not up to a healer’s standards, but it’ll keep any darkspawn blood from contaminating the open wound at the very least.

                “Alright, let’s go. We’ve wasted too much time,” Carver’s pushing them forward before she’s even finished tying her knots. They get moving and they drag him stumbling behind. “Garrett, you twit, get out of your bloody head and _move_!” Carver is worried again. He knows they’re right. He knows he’s got to keep himself going, but the truth is so heavy and he feels so weak.

                Bethany takes one look at the expression on his face, and quietly takes his hand in hers. She hides the sight of his slowly-fading Name and draws his gaze away.  Even if they don’t understand, they still ground him, force him back to the here and the now and not to the night his heart died.

                “We have to go,” Bethany tells him, calm and clear as the sounds of the enemy drift close enough to fear. He nods, squeezes her fingers once more for strength, and lets go.

                He should not have let go.

* * *

 

                “No!” he hears his mother’s scream and little else as Bethany’s body hits the ground. _No!_ it echoes through him too, and he turns to meet the horde, frantic and desperate to end this and get to her. He knows enough, he can heal her—he can fix this.

                Except he doesn’t. Except he can’t. He can send a whole wave of darkspawn wheeling, terrified and hallucinatory, over the lip of the precipice. He can dig into the well of _anger_ within that’s almost as good as lyrium and fry an _Ogre_ from the inside, but he can’t—he can’t fix this. He wants to believe if he can just dig deep enough—if he can just poor enough of himself in… but he knows the truth all too well.

                There’s a girl lying on the ground with her neck snapped and her heart stopped and Maker above, _why can’t he fix this?_

_“At least it was quick”_ It echoes over and over in his head, and he has to still his tongue from repeating. _At least it was quick_ , and he feels sick at his stomach just to think it. It’s supposed to be a mercy. He supposes it is, but it’s so sick and so _wrong_ and he just can’t—

(              He wonders, sometimes, why he still hasn’t said a word to Sebastian. Would it be a kindness or a cruelty to give the man an end to fit the name? Hasn’t Sebastian proven the type that craves understanding and closure?

                He wonders, but not for long. He knows the wretched truth; that he’s borne the weight of her death since the moment she hit the ground, and he _hates_ himself for it. He could have been faster—maybe he was too caught up wondering about his own dead Name to move. He should have found a way to save her. He should have died in her place!

                Maybe he just doesn’t want to look at Sebastian’s face and see the same hate reflected there. He doesn’t want to lose any more family.)

 

* * *

 

                “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for your loss,” the soldier they’ve picked up, Aveline, tells him sorrowfully as he sits, hand cupped to his face to hide his hurt. They’ve only just got to Gwarren. Mother is a mess, but she isn’t speaking to him. Carver’s trying to find some way to forget somewhere deeper in town. Garrett takes a ragged breath and discretely wipes his eyes.

                “Not worth much,” he tells her blandly, the ghost of his usual sarcasm. “But I appreciate it.” She nods, and drops beside him on the earthen floor. The lodgings they’ve managed to scrounge while waiting for a ship are hardly anything to write home about, but at least they’ve got a bit of breathing room. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for yours too,” he tells her, with as much sincerity as he can still manage to muster.

                “Not worth much,” she parrots back, and their bitter smiles match. Her eyes are just as red with crying, but somehow she seems so much stronger than he feels. Garrett doesn’t know how she does it. He fell to pieces when his Name left. Thought about ending it all and joining him, and if his family hadn’t been there…. He can’t imagine how it would feel if his Name had been more real than a dream.

                They sit together in the dim light and wait for the boat that will bring them away.

(              Someday, years in the future, he gets enough courage to ask Aveline about it. He doesn’t remember how. Maybe there’s a good amount of ale involved. Aveline shoots him a dry look, and fumbles with the buckles of her gauntlet. When it falls away, the name _Ryan_ is still stark and black against her freckled skin.

                “Oh,” Garrett mumbles, confused. She laughs in his face and puts her armor back together.

                “I don’t need some bloody letters to tell me who I like. Just because some fickle god decided to write someone else’s name doesn’t mean I loved Westley any less.” Aveline takes her tankard back in hand and takes a deep pull. “It doesn’t make losing him hurt any less,” she says, much quieter. He doesn’t know how she stays so composed. He watches all that strength and calm and realizes she has always been more affected than she let on. She’s just as ruined and hurt as the rest of them, no matter what her Name might suggest.

                “A drink for the fallen,” he says simply, and raises his ale. She raises her half-empty glass to join him, and laughs hollowly as he sloshes his drink all across the table.

                “You’re a mess,” she tells him fondly, “so at least we have that in common.”)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, I went and did a lot of research on my magic to figure out whether magical electricity can actually affect the path of an arrow. I discovered first, that conductors can be moved by a high enough voltage. good to know. But I'm still not sure whether that really applies to electricity jumping to a non-grounded conductor from the air? So my backup explanation is that the arrow fletching is singed enough to mess up the aim. You know, you go with whatever fits your suspension of disbelief. and if none of the above works, just pretend magic lightning is different than regular lightning and has magical force qualities. We'll go with that one.
> 
> See you soon-


	4. The Beast who Springs the Snare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hunters beware.  
> Alternately: trying to function is difficult when you feel you've already lost half your mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Told you guys this wasn't dead, but I suppose you'd no reason to believe me. XD
> 
> Hope you still enjoy!

* * *

 

                If he’s honest with himself, it’s really Carver and Aveline that get them to Kirkwall.

                They’re all grieving, and they’re all a little out of their minds, but Garrett and Leandra do little more than drift through the air like living ghosts. They were both already stones awash in the sea, name-ties severed. The loss of Bethany casts them further still into the depths.

                “This is _such_ horse shit.” Carver glares down at the cracked courtyard full of refugees and spits. Garrett can’t disagree.

                “At least it’s a way in,” Garrett tries placating, but the words sound hollow even in his own ears. “We’ve got to take it—you know as well as I that mother can’t—”

                “I know.” Carver interrupts almost violently, hands twitching with barely restrained frustration.  Leandra was a stronger woman once. It hurts to think about. “We’ve got to take it, damn it all. But if you think that means I’m not going to daydream about wringing our _dear_ uncle’s neck…”

                In the end, they decide to go with smuggling. It chafes at Aveline, but even she has to admit that Garrett being what he is, smuggling is probably safer. Better to hide a mage, buried amidst the cargo of the underworld than to advertise him as some kind of mercenary guard.

                The smuggler keeps her word and keeps him hidden, as well as she can. Truth is, he’s never been good at subtle.

* * *

 

                He has tried, very, very hard not to think too much about any of it. He’s gotten good at denial. He’s learned to hide his hurt deep every time their mother refuses to look his way. He’s figured out that the glimpse of dark, curly hair in the corner of his eye can only ever be a mirage. He doesn’t allow himself to think about the number of place-settings at the table, or the preciously guarded skirts still folded at the bottom of their tiny Lothering trunk.

                All in all, he’s become inexorably better at keeping the pain at bay. He had to. He’s practically written the book on numb functionality and its finer points.

                But this part—this part he’s never been able to push away. He can’t not obsess over it. Not as he still lives and breathes.

                “What is that madwoman thinking,” Carver’s body is tense with annoyance and maybe apprehension as he peers into their box of cargo for today. Hawke doesn’t follow suit. He could tell well enough what was inside. He’d felt its thrumming from the next room over—rows and rows of bottles, all filled with a liquid that glows silver white in the pitch of dark town. “Is she trying to get us all killed by the Carta?”

                “There’s a reason she’s having _us_ carry it. She must be expecting trouble,” Aveline cuts in. She slams the box-lid back down and nearly catches Carver’s fingers doing so. His yelp of surprise is ignored. “She’s going to get it if this continues. I told her when we started this job that I’ll rough up all of the side-ways merchants and cart as many stolen goods as she wants, but I refuse to touch Lyri—“

                “It’s fine, Aveline,” he interrupts before she can say more, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. Judging by the looks they send him, he isn’t very successful. “Why don’t you head back, and Carver and I can take care of this? It’s just one crate—from here to the docks. Can’t be too difficult.”

                “Hawke, it’s the idea of playing handmaid to someone’s addiction that I hate. It isn’t any better if you’re the one pandering in my stead.” He knows. She’s going to think less of him for insisting they go, and he’s going to _hate_ himself for it, but it’s got to be done. 

                “So leave now. For all you know, Carver and I left the box here and did nothing with it.” Carver sets the crate on the ground with the clatter of clinking glass. Garrett breathes through his nose and tries very hard to remember what being numb feels like. His fingers clench at the fabric of his sleeve. The name beneath thrums. If he looks, will he find the letters glowing? That cargo must be barely processed if at all, for him to feel this way.

                “I for one, am all for that plan,” his brother grumbles mutinously. No one bothers to acknowledge his comment. They all know such a thing can’t happen. They can’t risk being even more indebted than they already are. Aveline’s face is a rictus of frustration and distaste. She looks as if she’s bitten into something too sour to swallow.

                “We can talk about the jobs we take later,” she finally settles on saying, no less disgusted. He doesn’t meet her eyes. “Morality aside, you _know_ I can’t just leave you with this. This delivery is going to be a hell of a fight. Lyrium is the Carta’s purview. There’s no way she got ahold of this without their knowing.” His teeth grit as he hears that word. This whole time, he’s been busy trying hard not to think about anything more complicated than delivery and drugs, but that word makes it real. His wrist _stings_ and no matter how hard he presses he can’t block out the letters burned in his mind.

                Since Lothering, he’s been able to put much of his grief away, bury it deep. He’s gotten it down to an _art_ , but he hasn’t figured this part out yet. He doesn’t _understand_ it. He hasn’t had time to really sit and think through the whole thing, and Maker—he doesn’t _want_ to.

                _What does it mean, that he spent so many hours writhing in agony? How does Lyrium kill, if not through its unstable explosions or a long spiral into madness?_ He’s studied and studied the body and the sorts of torture it can go through, almost since the day everything went wrong. But he hadn’t thought of this—hadn’t thought to wonder whether and how—and now he paid dearly in a hundred painful imaginings. _Raw crystals in the lungs? Liquid in the vein? It can’t have been an accident. That at least is certain. Someone **killed** him_

“—should take it back—ask for a different job. We might be indentured, but that doesn’t mean we have to take suicide missions.” When he blinks the fog away from his mind, he finds that Carver has moved. His brother’s body now blocks the unassuming crate from his sight. Carver always did have an odd way of being considerate.

                “And have one of Athenril’s orphans do it instead? Don’t know about you, but I’d rather not.” He manages to speak with confidence he doesn’t feel. The look Aveline’s shooting his way seems closer to how he feels than his own mask of an expression. He doesn’t want to go along with this any more than they do. He wants it less. His whole being is screaming not to do this—not to even look at the substance that _took his name from him. Maker, what—what had they done to make him hurt so much and how and who—_

                But he’s no fool. At least not in this. It simply has to be done. He knows the smuggler. He’s been with her long enough to understand her business. He knows she’s making a stand, making the enemy damn aware that she’s not to be trifled with. He knows this is probably a response to their last raid on her warehouse, and to the agents they killed. She’s let the Carta know she’s willing to edge in on their territory too, let it leak that this delivery is happening. She’s counting on them to kill enough attackers to make the threat real. If it were him, he might do the same.

                The only problem is… this can’t be _just cargo_ to him. The throbbing of his wrist seems to ring in his ears. He swallows the acid that rises in his throat and makes his decision. “It has to be done. You two can stay if you like.”

                “Hawke, are you even listening? I just said—“ He sidesteps Carver, hoists the box on his own shoulder and feels _sick_  as he hears the bottles clinking inside. There’s an acrid smell wafting from it, like iron and something he has no name for. It makes his head spin.  

                He’s too twisted up in his own thoughts to hear their protests. _If he were to take a bottle or two for himself, could he figure out what they’d done? Could he learn as he’d learned before—He could. He could find a way to make a man suffer like that. He could go to Tevinter and make every magister there feel what he felt. He could—_

                “Let me carry it, you suicidal moron,” Carver finally manages to get through to him by yanking the crate from his hand. “We’ll need your hands free to start slinging spells when we’re inevitably ambushed.” He wisely doesn’t point out that Carver has just as much need of his own hands, given his sword requires the use of both. Aveline follows behind, sword drawn and shield up. Her silent displeasure presses on them like a tangible mantle.

                Though they wander tense and taught as a bowstring to the docks, no enemy appears. He keeps wondering when the strike will finally come. The streets and winding stairwells they climb are suspiciously empty. If they hadn’t already known this for a trap, they’d have caught on by the time they wandered up into the open air.

                “What in the Maker’s name are they bloody waiting for,” Carver hisses as they pass another corner un-hindered.

                “Do you plan to stick around and find out?” Aveline glides forward, shield first toward the next shadowed alleyway.  Garrett tries to keep his mind trained on the here and now, alert to footsteps or breath in the dark. Instead, he finds his eyes inevitably drawn to the box held carefully against his brother’s chest, keyed in to every chime of glass.  

                As it turns out, what they were 'bloody waiting for', was the buyer. He almost doesn’t realize in time. There’s a figure waiting at the drop off point, an unassuming woman, long wavy hair spilling out from her hood. She’s barely tilted her head in their direction when the first sachet of powder hits the ground and bursts into a cloud of smoke.

                _He doesn’t have a way to test it, really. He’d have to work off theory only, but he might just do it. There’s only so many ways a body can die, and he can tick through them one by one. Does lyrium affect the heart? The liver? Maybe it just caused him such pain the shock eventually shut him down. If that’s the case—_

                “ _Hawke!”_ Aveline shouts, her voice bouncing over stone and dark water. He hears her just in time to recognize the sound of heavy breathing behind him.

                Right.

                He manages to dodge the dagger in his gut, but only just. It slices the skin of his ribs, and he knows he should probably be mindful of poison in the wound later.

                “Bad luck getting this job,” he shoots the shadowed dwarf a half-hearted apology as he activates a paralysis rune beneath the duster’s feet. It’s a simple matter to lift his staff from its holster behind him and cave the man’s skull in. Interesting how, with enough magical reinforcement, paralysis can make blows extra effective. Instead of crumbling beneath any applied force, paralyzed bodies attempt to keep their stance, pushing against the oncoming hit and increasing the damage. 

                He realizes he should probably feel something other than a clinical satisfaction in the fulfilment of his research, but he doesn’t really. Bad luck can be lethal, and it’s him or them.

                “Oh!” Their buyer is trying to stifle her shouts with both hands and a scarf. Aveline, pulling her sword out of a man’s chest, has managed to cross the relatively wide open space of the dock. She stands with her shield between the unknown woman and the clouds of dust and ground glass that grant the enemy cover.

                “Brother mine, could you please get out of your bloody head and put these bastards to sleep already!” He shoots carver an annoyed frown and tries to do as he’s told. Sleep is an easy spell to cast, but not with quite so many targets. He does what he can, spinning his staff and sending the assassins surrounding Carver to the ground in pathetic heaps. Carver wastes little time cutting them down. More are already surging to fill the gaps.

                He’s trying to keep his mind on the fight, searching out the glint of moonlight on metal and making his way to Aveline. In a situation like this, with the enemy flitting unseen in the smoke, it’s best to fight back to back. Another rogue lunges for him and meets his end instead. It’s far too simple to send tendrils of his magic into the man’s mind, _twist_ just so until the dwarf is reeling and hysterical. Driven by nightmares, the duster careens, screaming, over the dock’s edge into the water. He supposes they might live if they could swim, but in full armor he has doubts about their prospects.  

                “Get the mage,” he hears someone command, or thinks he does. Suddenly Carver has a few less targets. He realizes as he squints into the wafting smoke, ignoring the way it stings his nostrils, he’s gained a few more.

                After that, he loses track. There’s more than a few Carta members that follow horrified into the hungering harbor, and a larger number with their skulls cracked on the ground. He’s got a pattern going—good and sustainable. He feels invincible. Like he can cast all night—all he has to do is get them all to sleep and Carver and Aveline can take care of the rest. He can keep them all safe. He can get them all out—

                His focus snaps when he feels something plunge, twisting into his lower back. The finesse he needs to reach into entropy fails him. He bares his teeth instead, blocks the second knife aimed for his spine with the end of his staff as he whirls to face the enemy. _Maker_ it hurts to twist like that, but it’s not the worst pain he’s felt. By far, it’s not the worst.

                “Do not cross me,” he bites, staff slamming against the ground and taking the blade straight from its owner’s hand. Lightening illuminates the dock. Electricity pours from him, frying the poor sod trying to murder him and making the remaining silhouettes more obvious. He throws all his anger and tension into the spell—makes up what he lacks in finesse right now with sheer power. His mind is falling all over itself—too stuck on the pain shooting through his back to concentrate on the particularities of the enemy mind and physiology. But anything will die if you put enough volts through it.

                “Hawke, they’re retreating.” He can’t hear Aveline over the cracking of his own lightning. _Out_ he forces another wave of charge—into the soft nervous system of another body. It floods and shorts and falls. He’s wavering now—Electricity doesn’t like being used like this, not any more. It’s draining him. He’s using too much. Staff still upright, he falls to one knee. “Hawke!” Aveline tries more frantically. She doesn’t dare get too near to him—fearful of the electricity that’s charging the very air around him. It doesn't matter. He can do this. He can kill them all. He doesn’t need careful control. He’s got enough power to take anything down. He can push himself so much further. All he has to do is—All he needs to—

                Distantly, beneath the waves of pain emanating from his lower back, he begins to be aware of letters, burning white hot in the flesh of his wrist.

                He cuts the spell off immediately and fights not to vomit. He barely keeps his staff from clattering to the ground as the last of the Carta ambush make their way back into the safety of night. Once they’re gone, he lets it go. How long had he been— how much of that was actually _his_ power and how much was the blasted _Lyrium_ grafted into his arm? He didn’t want to use it. He’d promised himself he’d never use it again. It wasn’t fair—he didn’t want to even _think about—_

                “Dumbass, drawing that much attention to yourself! What do you think you’re doing with a showy move like that!” Carver’s stomping his way, cleaning his blade and sheathing it as he goes. “Do you _want_ to bring the Templar down on our heads?” He’s too busy half-gagging, trying to remember how to breathe to answer.

                “Hawke, are you well?” Aveline cautions as she finally puts her weaponry away. They must be certain the Carta are frightened off, without a second wave of operatives. He doesn’t understand why they’re certain of that. The unknown woman behind Aveline fidgets.

                “I think I saw one of them get your friend in the back.” Her voice is strong and refined. Oddly composed for a woman standing amidst a score or so of Carta corpses. Somewhere outside his field of vision, Carver swears.

                “Let me see,” he grits begrudgingly. Garrett hasn’t got much choice in the matter. He feels his brother’s fingers clumsily brush the hilt of the dagger still far too close to his kidneys for comfort, and swallows a scream.

                It’s not real pain. It’s not like what he’s felt before. His wrist though—the letters illuminating the ground even through the fabric of his sleeve… they hurt less, but the pain is so much _worse_.

                “It’s fine,” He gasps, breathless. Neither of his companions believe him.

                “Shit. They got one in deep. Swear on the Maker, Garrett if you’re ever too distracted to keep your blasted head in a fight again…” the threat remains incomplete. Carver loses creativity when he’s angry. “I’ll pull and you’ll heal. Ready? On three.” He tries not to think about the way his arm shakes when flails at Carver and lurches away.

                “I said it’s fine.” He tries to rise and nearly blacks out. The motion sends spots dancing through his vision. “Just help me up—”

                “Garrett, don’t be a child about this. Sit still and let me get the damn thing out.” Of course his brother doesn’t let it go. Of course. In the end, Aveline stands with a hand to his shoulder to keep him still. Carver wrenches the knife artlessly away. It clatters to the ground anticlimactically.

                “ _Andraste’s flaming knickers_ you _utter_ ass,” he swears when he feels like screaming. Aveline’s hand is firm and warm—a pressure he can focus on to ground himself. Carver’s not finished torturing him just yet. His arm is unceremoniously manhandled until his trembling hand hovers over the wound.

                “Heal it.”

                He doesn’t. The name on his wrist still glows enough to cast light on the hole in his back. And he can’t. He won’t. He _refuses_ to tap into that. “Don’t _tell_ me you wasted all that energy on your flashy light show. You are the most frustrating—”

                “You’ve done me the favor of making such a dangerous delivery. If it would help, I can part with some of the Lyrium,” their buyer calls. While the others have been fussing, she’s found the crate amidst the bodies, dropped when the battle began. Distantly, he wonders whether all the bottles are even still intact.

                “No!” He cries before he can stop himself. Three sets of eyes snap to him in surprise. “None of that please. I’m… allergic. Just… give me a few minutes.”  There’s no such thing as a lyrium allergy. He knows it. The buyer knows it. She seems a discerning woman. Her gaze doesn’t leave his form for far too long a time.

                “I’m no healer, but I’m a fair hand with tinctures. I’ve got a few that can at least stop the bleeding. Figure I owe you lot that,” She tries again. One slender hand is already moving over the deceptive folds of fabric in her simple-yet-elegant dress. This time, he gives in.

                The Lady’s salve is good enough to get him on his feet and back to their hide-away. It’s good enough to tide him over until the letters in his wrist stop singing and he can use his own magic again. He nods and smiles in all the right places as they part ways, and makes a note to himself to get in touch with this woman again sometime soon. She’s got medical knowledge and a working understanding of lyrium, apparently. If he ever wants to figure out how—if he wants to know—

                He’ll probably try to find her.

                He thanks her a few more times, and pretends not to notice when she pulls Carver aside, and slips a blue-glass bottle, faintly glowing, into his pack.

                “It doesn’t do for nice folks like you to wander in the dark unprotected,” she says, “So just in case…” Carver nods conspiratorially. He wonders whether Aveline will protest but she doesn’t seem to notice. His wrist throbs, worse as Carver draws near.

                He says nothing and feels _sick_.

* * *

(              When he’s more settled, years later, he watches Aveline illegally pass a few impounded blue bottles to Anders’ assistant.

                “What happened to refusing to handle that stuff?” He wonders aloud, hand already self-consciously reaching to cover his wrist.

                “Did you know lyrium is a key ingredient in potions that fight blight?” He did not, in fact. He manages a shake of the head, even as his mind is racing to determine what this might mean for his research.

                “No.” He says, stiltedly. Aveline sighs and adjusts her scarf.  

                “Apparently many of the Ferelden refugees had Names felled by darkspawn. And if your Name is blighted…” He blinks, a few more pieces fitting into place. Even if Aveline hadn’t told him already, he should have realized long ago that Westley couldn’t possibly have been her match. He knew he could be oblivious sometimes, but for goodness’s sake… “It’s something like this; without medicine, blight becomes a plague on the refugees of Darktown. Without lyrium, there is no medicine. But without coin, who can afford the lyrium? So maybe it’s in the public interest if a few bottles go missing now and then.”

                “Maybe,” he agrees, caught somewhere wondering between the properties of lyrium and the implications of a blighted Name. It makes a twisted sort of sense—Apparently if your Name is killed by lyrium, that reaches through the bond as well. Why wouldn’t it be able to fight the effects of a similar taint?

                “I don’t know,” Aveline sighs, and suddenly she seems so small. It’s an awkward look for her. It makes him want to lean his staff against the wall, pick her up and refuse to let go. If he didn’t think she’d put her gauntlet through his skull for it, he just might try. “Maybe I just hate the thought that somewhere, _his_ Name is suffering, and they never even got to see how _absolutely worth it_ he was.”

                “Even without meeting, they know he would have been perfect.” It’s all he can say before he has to stop—this is too much, too close, and he has more to do today. “Another time, Guard Captain.” But even after he has run away, her words echo in his ears.                )


End file.
